Mexico Crisis Worsens

Bonnie

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Jun 30, 2004
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Mexico crisis deepens with civil resistance plan
Mon Jul 17, 2006 5:49 PM ET

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsA...RUKOC_0_US-MEXICO-ELECTION.xml&archived=False

By Alistair Bell

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A campaign of civil resistance by leftists to force a recount in Mexico's disputed presidential election will start this week, taking the U.S. ally further down the road of crisis.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist who lost the July 2 vote by a hair's breadth, said high-profile actions to bring attention to his claims of fraud and demands for a recount were imminent.

"As of today, we will work out the plan and what I can say is that the first civil resistance actions will begin this week," he told a left-wing radio station.

Lopez Obrador lost the July 2 election to conservative Felipe Calderon by some 240,000 votes, out of over 41 million cast, and he claims widespread fraud.

Leftist leaders refused to say what kind of protests were planned by Lopez Obrador, who pulled a crowd of hundreds of thousands of supporters at a demonstration on Sunday.

Manuel Camacho Solis, a main political adviser to the leftist, said some of the actions would not be announced in advance to maintain an element of surprise.

"What I can say at the moment is that the protests are going to increase in the next two weeks all over the country," he told Reuters.

An electoral court is studying complaints by Lopez Obrador that there were huge irregularities in the original count, and a later recount of tally sheets. The court must declare a winner of the election by September 6.

European Union observers have said there was no major fraud at the election, which divided Mexico between left and right only six years after President Vicente Fox ended seven decades of single-party rule in the last presidential vote.

CALDERON CONCILIATORY

Sunday's march, along several miles of city streets, ended without any clashes or destruction of property, despite fears that the protests could get out of hand.

Calderon, a former energy minister, dubbed Lopez Obrador "a danger for Mexico" in TV ads during the campaign but he was conciliatory on Monday.

"I repeat my invitation to sustain and strengthen the dialogue that allows us to define and decide the Mexico we want for our children," he told a meeting of religious leaders.

"Peace is built with the efforts of everyone. It demands abiding by the law," he said.

Harvard-educated Calderon would foster Mexico's close relations with the United States. Lopez Obrador would be likely to create more friction with Washington, but he would not change Mexico's status as a close trade ally and partner on border security, analysts say.

Lopez Obrador, who wants a vote-for-vote recount from the election, has a long history of leading protests.

As a local politician in his native state of Tabasco in the 1990s he blocked oil wells and encouraged tens of thousands of people not to pay energy bills to protest alleged vote fraud and environmental damage by the Pemex oil company.

Camacho Solis said there would be no blocking oil wells this time around.

"We are not thinking of that," he said. "Everything we do will be peaceful and within Mexican law," he said.

Calderon has flatly opposed a vote-for-vote recount but a top aide suggested he would approve of it if the Trife electoral court ordered one.

"We would accept any mandate from the Trife," advisor Josefina Vazquez Mota told Reuters.
 
You know, there really is going to be global fighting soon. almost all the nations are either going to be at war or in civil war.
 
Avatar4321 said:
You know, there really is going to be global fighting soon. almost all the nations are either going to be at war or in civil war.

And I can't wait until it starts here. America has some serious house cleaning to do. We can start with throwing out the 13 million illegal aliens that are here.
 
Pale Rider said:
And I can't wait until it starts here. America has some serious house cleaning to do. We can start with throwing out the 13 million illegal aliens that are here.

The worse it gets in Mexico, the more they will try to come here. :2guns:
 
Pale Rider said:
And I can't wait until it starts here. America has some serious house cleaning to do. We can start with throwing out the 13 million illegal aliens that are here.

I can wait. I have no desire to see bloodshed. Unfortunately there may be no avoiding it at some point.

Problem is people are too content in living in a fantasy world. This is exactly like right before world war 2. People refused to see the threat. And because of that the threat continued to grow. So taking care of it later was all the more difficult. And it was paid in alot more blood.

Unfortuantely people have a slow learning curve.
 
dilloduck said:
The worse it gets in Mexico, the more they will try to come here. :2guns:

True.. the harder they'll work at 'taking us over', without a shot fired as it is.
 
Avatar4321 said:
I can wait. I have no desire to see bloodshed. Unfortunately there may be no avoiding it at some point.

Problem is people are too content in living in a fantasy world. This is exactly like right before world war 2. People refused to see the threat. And because of that the threat continued to grow. So taking care of it later was all the more difficult. And it was paid in alot more blood.

Unfortuantely people have a slow learning curve.

I have no desire to see blood spilled either pard. But I'm a realist, and I don't see it happening any other way.

The fact of the matter is, Mexico has a lot to gain from America, and America has a lot to gain from Mexico. If we can clean up the illegal problem, that would ease tensions a lot. But yes, I also realize that Mexico has about one of the most corrupt governments in the world. I would hope that half the illegal mexicans here would be very pissed at their own government, and would want to see change in their own country so they could go home.
 

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